News-ed Internship Mentoring

If you’re a news-ed student, you must complete the News-ed Internship Mentoring Program to be eligible for credit for the Journalism Internship.

A faculty member will invest some time in helping you achieve the maximum benefit from your internship. This program will give you knowledge about the newspaper and its community, and help you take the initiative in developing story ideas.

Your responsibilities as a news-ed student intern: As soon as you have been accepted for an internship at a newspaper, you must:

• notify the internship coordinator about the internship and get a copy of the News-ed Intern Mentorship Checklist
• find a full-time news-ed faculty member who agrees to act as your mentor
• research the newspaper’s history, including ownership, union affiliations, readership demographics, circulation area and any additional material available from the newspaper, online sources, or the library. You also should know the names of the publisher, editors, reporters, graphic artists, and photographers.
• read, if available, at least a month of back issues of the newspaper to become familiar with the issues of the community and the readership
• begin reading the newspaper every day to stay current with stories in the community and to start thinking of ideas for stories to suggest during the internship
• meet with your mentor periodically to present story ideas you can pitch to editors at the newspaper, discuss professional-development goals you can set for the semester, and ask any questions you have about professional newspaper journalism

By the last day of classes for the semester, you will have produced and had approved by your advisor:

• a list of at least 15 story ideas you can suggest during the internship. The list will include a story slug, a paragraph of history on the issue, a paragraph describing the story, a news peg, and a source list with contact information. The story ideas should be clearly focused on topics important to the community but should not be stories the newspaper has published previously.
• a list of goals for the internship
• a packet of background information on the newspaper and its community
• a completed News-ed Intern Mentorship Checklist, to be signed by the mentor and submitted to the internship coordinator, who will then give you permission to enroll in the internship course. The news-ed sequence coordinator also should receive a copy of the checklist.

On the first day of the internship, you should share the list of goals with the internship editor or editors. After checking to see how open the internship editor is to story ideas, you should begin pitching the story ideas.

The mentor’s responsibilities: Your faculty mentor will help you prepare for the internship and will explain what to expect during it. After agreeing to be your mentor, the faculty member will:

• meet with you at least three times: an introduction meeting to set deadlines for fulfilling the program’s requirements, an update meeting, and a final meeting to make sure you have met all of the program’s requirements
• help you develop and focus story ideas that can be taken to the internship
• help you learn how to pitch a story to an editor
• sign off on the News-ed Intern Mentorship Checklist after being satisfied you have completed each item

Your mentor might also offer assistance during the internship. For example, if you get stuck while working on a story, you might contact the mentor for help.

The sequence head will send a letter to your editor outlining the mentorship program and asking the editor for help in guiding you and providing the department with as much feedback as possible on the program and on your evaluations that the internship coordinator requests.

Deadlines: You should notify internship coordinator of an internship by the following deadlines. If you accept an internship after the deadline, you’re still eligible for the mentoring program, but you must tell the internship coordinator of the internship immediately after accepting it.

• summer internship: April 1
• fall internship: August 1
• spring internship: November 1